New India Research Centre launches

Macquarie University's India Reseach Centre is officially opening this week

Indian Consul General Amit Dasgupta will officially launch the Macquarie University India Research Centre on Wednesday 17 November 2010.

The launch will be the highlight in a week of activities - academic and cultural - celebrating the opening of this new centre of research, part funded through a generous contribution by the Indian Government.

The India Research Centre is designed to act as a focus, catalyst and showcase for the exciting styles of research already taking place within the Faculty of Arts at Macquarie University across disciplines such as Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Music, Sociology, Media, Asian Languages and Law.

Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Professor John Simons says 'We aim to create a research community of work on India at the university and so strengthen the broader research community of South Asia scholars in the rest of Australia, as well as develop further social, academic and community links with India.'

The centre's activities will have three key elements: cultural, political and social science reseach on India and Indian immigrant diasporas; engagement with Indian performance culture both in written and practice-based forms opening up new forms of collaborations; and collaboration with the Indian community on issues of community concern as well as through the arts.

The launch of the centre will also celebrate the endowment of a new Tagore Chair in Art and Culture by the Government of India. It is envisaged as a Visiting Chair, bringin to Macquarie University eminent cultural practitioners in the field of the arts as well as those engaged in research in the field of cultural practice.

For more information on the work being undertaken by the India Research Cente, head to www.irc.mq.edu.au